


Know Thyself

by forthegreatergood



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Foggy Nelson Is a Good Bro, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Light Angst, M/M, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson at Columbia, Non-Consensual Drug Use, additional details in beginning notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 15:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17665208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forthegreatergood/pseuds/forthegreatergood
Summary: Matt’s not at law school to make friends.  Unfortunately, no one told his roommate that.Foggy had apologized for waking Matt up, once he’d realized that Matt wasn’t asleep.  Instead of telling Foggy that he hadn’tbeenasleep, hadn’t been able to shake the thought of Foggy dead in a ditch somewhere, Matt had told him not to worry about it.  Foggy, of course--blithe, happy-go-lucky Foggy--had taken him at his word, and hadn’t worried about it.It would be easier, if Matt actually wasn’t worrying about it.  One little form, and Matt could have his protective bubble back.  One little form, and he could put all his focus back on his studies.  One little form, and he’d have absolutely no idea where Foggy was or what Foggy was doing.It would be a relief, really.  For both of them, Matt was sure.





	Know Thyself

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings 
> 
> Non-consensual drug use: Foggy and another student are drugged by a stranger at a finals-week party. There is no additional violence or subsequent sexual contact, but there is the expected emotional response.
> 
> Implied/referenced child abuse: Brief references to Stick's mentorship and training of Matt, consistent with what's shown in canon.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Boilerplate 
> 
> All characters property of Marvel.
> 
> Not beta-read. Please post any noticed errors in the comments, and they'll get fixed.

Matt ran his fingers over the room transfer paperwork again, lips pursing. Such a little thing to fill out, such an easy thing to drop off with the RA. The least amount of work he could possibly be asked to do in his entire time at Columbia, and he’d been sitting on it for weeks. Matt shoved it back in the envelope and tossed it onto his desk. One half-page form, and he’d never have to see Foggy outside of class again.

It wasn’t that Matt didn’t like his roommate. It was just that Matt had gotten used to a certain degree of privacy. He’d always pulled singles in undergrad, probably because it was easier to stick him in a room alone than worry about a disabled student suing over a murderously messy roommate. It had been a welcome respite, after the orphanage. He’d had a place to himself, somewhere he didn’t have to worry about keeping his powers under wraps, at least a hundred square feet he didn’t have to share with another person’s sweat and breathing and fabric softener. 

Matt had gotten used to a certain degree of privacy, and Foggy was… kind of a lot. Not in a bad way--Matt couldn’t bring himself to be unjust about that, even to himself. Foggy was affable, kind, to the point where Matt could almost start resenting him for being too easy-going. 

Matt had complained about Foggy skipping one too many post-gym showers, made up an excuse that was close enough to the truth about sensory overload related to his blindness, and after that everything else Matt had complained about--his cologne, his laundry, his bodywash--had been met with a simple “Oh, right, the smell thing.” and an immediate change in behavior. A normal person would have put in for a room transfer of their own to get away from their high-maintenance asshole of a roommate, but Foggy had continued on his merry way, oblivious to the unreasonableness of Matt’s demands.

Matt had complained about a few of Foggy’s friends, and instead of being upset, getting defensive of them, or leaving Matt the hell alone, Foggy had made a point of only inviting him to the get-togethers and study sessions where the offending parties weren’t present. Matt even suspected Foggy was actively on the look-out for things to drag him along on that wouldn’t involve those people.

There seemed to be nothing Matt could ask for that Foggy wouldn’t happily accommodate, and Foggy was still driving him up a wall. Matt wasn’t sure why it was taking him so long to do them both the favor of putting in for a transfer.

Foggy had even stopped having sex in their room, when Matt had complained about that. It had been the one thing Foggy had pushed back on, just a little. He’d wanted to know why, asked for an explanation, and held himself like he was bracing for a blow. Matt still wasn’t sure what that was about, since Foggy had kept his tone even and calm and hadn’t given Matt a way of asking that wouldn’t have betrayed his powers. It itched at him, not knowing whether Foggy was expecting Matt to disapprove of him sleeping around or of the gender of some of his partners. Matt wasn’t sure what he could have done to give Foggy the impression that he was a bigot; it wasn’t like Matt had pointedly hung a bunch of crucifixes all over the room or reacted badly to Foggy’s clumsy attempts at flirting that first day. 

Attempts which hadn’t been repeated, because of course they hadn’t. Foggy was far too nice a person to make another overture when Matt hadn’t been interested the first time, not to someone stuck living with him. Matt wasn’t even sure Foggy had _meant_ to do it that first day, given how he’d fumbled his way through it. Foggy’s more calculated attempts, overheard from across the student union and the cafeteria and the quad, tended to involve a lot less flailing. A lot more succeeding, too, which Matt found almost baffling. Foggy never said anything terribly remarkable, most of his jokes were frankly terrible, his hobbies all revolved around socializing and having fun in the most inane ways possible--and yet women found him charming, and men almost never turned him down.

Maybe that was why Matt hadn’t bothered putting in for the transfer yet. Foggy not using their room for sex meant that Foggy was spending a lot of his time elsewhere now, doing god only knew what with the latest new acquaintance. Half the time it was like having a single again, except that when Matt had had a single, he’d never once laid awake listening to the footsteps on the stairs and in the hall, listening to the heartbeats in the elevator, listening for his roommate’s voice on the green in front of the dorm, to reassure himself that his roommate wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.

It had been cold enough lately that Matt almost regretted saying anything. Foggy tended toward one-night stands and casual flings, shallow encounters that didn’t call for staying the night. It had been one thing when he’d invited people over while Matt was at the library studying or picking up a bit of extra cash tutoring or out at the legal aid clinic; the timing had meant that no one was heading home alone at midnight on icy sidewalks. With Foggy walking someone home from class, staying for dinner, staying to watch a movie, staying for sex, Matt never knew when to expect him back, never knew when to start worrying.

It hadn’t really helped on the sensory front, either. However uncomfortable it was trying to breathe around the smell of sex wafting from Foggy’s sheets--or hanging in the air if the encounter had been too recent--it wasn’t much more comfortable smelling someone else all over him when he came home. And of course, while Foggy would never even think of toking up in their room, all bets were off when he was somewhere else. The night before Matt had printed out the transfer form, Foggy had finally turned up at two in the morning, pot smoke clinging to him so thickly it could almost blunt the smell of the three-way he’d spent his evening having. 

Foggy had apologized for waking Matt up, once he’d realized that Matt wasn’t asleep. Instead of telling Foggy that he hadn’t _been_ asleep, hadn’t been able to shake the thought of Foggy passed out on a bench and succumbing to hypothermia, Matt had told him not to worry about it. Matt had told him not to worry about it, and had lain in bed seething with the overwhelming desire to tear those reeking clothes off him, to shove him in the shower and scrub those two strangers off his skin until Foggy smelled like himself and no one else again. Foggy, of course--blithe, happy-go-lucky Foggy--had taken him at his word, and hadn’t worried about it.

It would be easier, if Matt actually wasn’t worrying about it. One little form, and Matt could have his protective bubble back, and someone else could wait up for Foggy to come home, check for a sock or a tie on the door in case Foggy had a guest, steer Foggy away from friends who talked shit about him behind his back and only hung around because he was--apparently--very good at fellatio.

Matt sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. One little form, and he could put all his focus back on his studies. One little form, and he’d have absolutely no idea where Foggy was or what Foggy was doing.

It would be a relief, really. For both of them, Matt was sure. 

Foggy was kind, and Foggy’s vitals never fluttered when he assured Matt he’d be thrilled if Matt could make it to his study-buddy’s birthday party, his debate partner’s post-exam kegger, his TA’s barbecue, but there had to be limits to how much a social butterfly like Foggy could honestly enjoy toting around his blind wallflower of a roommate. Foggy dragged Matt to so much that he seemed to feel obligated to accept any return invitations to Matt’s things, attending functions there was no way he was interested in solely because Matt had asked and there wasn’t a polite way to say no. The last time Matt had gotten too drunk and had genuinely needed help getting back to their room, he’d not only cost Foggy a shot at sleeping with a girl Foggy had been rhapsodizing over for weeks, but Foggy had insisted on spending the rest of the night looking after him.

“Matt, buddy, you’ve done the same for me at least three times this semester. It’s no big deal, I promise.” Foggy had even laughed, and that bright, cheerful laugh of his made Matt feel less miserable all by itself, made Matt gloss over the way he couldn’t remember taking care of Foggy like this. He was pretty sure, alcohol-soaked as he was, that he’d have remembered doing something on par with Foggy draping Matt in a blanket, bringing him glasses of water every thirty minutes, finding a livestream of a seashore because artificial white-noise generators just made Matt’s disorientation worse, sitting with his arm across Matt’s shoulders and Matt’s head resting on his to ground him.

Foggy wasn’t in the habit of getting so drunk he needed tending to, so far as Matt knew. It was just that his normally muted self-preservation instincts completely disappeared when he started drinking, and he’d forget about things like frostbite and muggers and not taking shortcuts down dark alleys. It was easier to walk home with Foggy, hand curled around Foggy’s elbow and Foggy’s cheerful humming and steady heartbeat a welcome counterpoint to the thrum of activity on campus on a Saturday night, than it was to leave Foggy to his own devices and fret until he made it back to the dorm.

Matt wasn’t in the habit of getting so drunk he needed tending to, either, but he still did it every so often. It was a chain reaction--drinking too quickly meant his normal level of awareness and self-control started failing, which meant his judgment about whether or not he could have another drink without screwing himself was compromised at best, which usually meant he continued to drink too quickly. If Matt bowed out early and left Foggy to his own devices, there was no telling whether or not he’d stick to his usual routine or if that would be the night someone suggested shots and Foggy happily went along with the rest of them and wound up in trouble with no one responsible to help.

Which was, possibly, a problem in and of itself, wasn’t it? Matt waiting in the wings to take Foggy home, Matt asking if maybe they shouldn’t hit the library instead of the bars, Matt pointing out that it was already midnight and they both had class at nine--it was all letting Foggy traipse along without taking any sort of responsibility for his life. Foggy picked up course material quickly, and Foggy had a knack for zeroing in on applicable precedent, and Foggy was, underneath it all, wickedly smart; there was no reason for him to be pulling solidly mediocre scores in all his classes.

Matt grimaced. It was a miracle they weren’t both on academic probation already, but in Matt’s case, at least he knew what the problem was.

Tomorrow, he decided. He’d put in for the transfer tomorrow.

* * *

Matt sat up at his desk, pulled his headphones off, and hit pause on the speech program. He held himself still as a statue, listening, and yes, those were Foggy’s footsteps in the hall, Foggy’s heartbeat. Too unsteady, too fast, and Matt ran the pad of his thumb over his watch. Barely eleven; the party would still be in full swing, and Foggy had cheerfully told Matt not to wait up.

When Foggy started fumbling with the lock, Matt opened the door for him and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh, Christ,” Foggy yelped, clutching his bulky coat in front of himself like a shield. “Please tell me I didn’t wake you up? I’m sorry, it’s just.” Foggy stopped, looked around, and ran his fingers through his hair almost like he was petting it. When he turned back to Matt, he seemed vaguely surprised to find him still there. “Right. It’s been a night. A long one. I’m just gonna go to bed, okay?”

Matt’s nostrils flared, and he swallowed. Foggy’s skin was blazingly warm, heat rolling off him in flickering waves, and there was barely any alcohol on his breath. Maybe a beer, or a shot, but nothing to account for the way he wasn’t tracking. There was something else there rattling around under the surface, something chemical and wrong and dampening his reaction times. Matt stepped aside and let Foggy stumble into the room. Foggy tossed his coat onto his bed and shrugged out of his jacket, and Matt wrinkled his nose at Foggy’s sweat. Distress, worry, something sweet and artificial.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked. 

Foggy smelled like the party he’d said he was going to, had asked Matt to attend with him. A faint trace of cigarette smoke and charcoal ash settled in a uniform layer over his clothes, like it had wafted in through a frequently-opened sliding door. The patina of dozens of people’s sweat, of beer and snacks, of common rooms hastily cleaned up and febreezed ahead of company. The heady mix of strangers celebrating the end of the semester or desperately avoiding the results of their exams together. He’d made it there and stayed a while, clearly. Matt had met the guys throwing it--friends of Foggy’s, he’d known a few of them since his first year of undergrad. They were generally decent, reliable, in a low-stakes, daily-use sort of way, if not necessarily people Matt would trust to have someone’s back in an emergency.

“Ugh.” Foggy pulled off his shoes and flopped onto his bed, half-burying himself in the discarded coat before pushing it back off. “I’ll be--” He waved a hand. “--fine.”

“How much did you have to drink?” _What did you take? What else did you do?_ wasn’t on the table until Foggy had answered that one. It wasn’t like Matt could tell Foggy that he smelled like he’d been rolling in sugar substitute, not without a lot of countering questions Matt didn’t have a good answer to.

“Okay, that’s… complicated.” Foggy frowned, wincing. That same wince from when Matt asked him not to fuck in their room anymore, like he was expecting Matt to be mad at him. “Only like, half a beer. But turns out it wasn’t just beer, so, I don’t know how to answer that, you know, accurately?”

Matt tried to formulate a response around the raging, abrupt questions swirling in his gut--someone had slipped Foggy something else? what? and how much? and when?--and Foggy turned away, curling in on himself.

“I know, I know, you don’t have to say it,” he said. He sounded defeated, sad, lost, and it was like a hard left jab sliding right through Matt’s defenses. “And it’s not like I knew it was spiked--I’m not an idiot. Can we just save the lecture for tomorrow morning?”

Matt carefully let out the breath he’d been holding, then made Foggy roll back over and sit up. “We really can’t.”

He rested the back of his hand against Foggy’s forehead, and Foggy twitched back with a gasp.

“Fuck, Matt, your hands are like ice,” he said, brow furrowing. “Are _you_ okay?”

Matt wrapped his hand around the back of Foggy’s neck and checked his forehead again. “It’s not me, Foggy,” he said evenly. “You’re burning up. I need you to tell me what happened. Start to finish, okay?”

“Nothing happened,” Foggy protested. 

He tried to pull away, and Matt felt justified, just this once, in not letting him. He squeezed the back of Foggy’s neck gently, his fingers digging into Foggy’s hair, damp with sweat and a few flakes of snow. He’d been too warm to pull his hood up, Matt realized. After a moment, Foggy gave up and stopped fighting him. Matt decided it was better not to let go until he’d gotten a few more answers out of him.

“Foggy,” he said firmly, tilting Foggy’s chin up, making Foggy look him in the face. Not that he could look Foggy in the eye, but it was a trick that had worked well before, when people felt guilty about lying to him. Even if someone knew he was blind, knew he couldn’t see them, they still had to make peace with themselves.

Foggy squirmed unhappily, then his hands were closing around Matt’s wrists and prying Matt off him. Matt blinked, wishing he’d kept his glasses on. Foggy’s hands were blood-warm, soft-skinned, and holding on hard, and Matt didn’t need this sort of distraction right now. Not that he had a problem with physical contact in general, but this was… something else.

“Matt, buddy, _please_ stop touching me. I’ve already got a fever and the spins,” Foggy said, closing his eyes. “I can’t do this with a hard-on, too.”

“Um.” Matt’s mouth was suddenly dry, and Foggy’s grip on his wrists wasn’t loosening. It would be easy enough for Matt to break it, free himself, but it wasn’t as if Foggy was doing anything about it or hurting him. He was just holding on.

“Look, I get it, you’re blind, you have no idea how, like, supernova hot you are. Just this once, trust me and, you know, keep your hands to yourself until this wears off?” Foggy asked, his voice tired. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Matt’s knuckles, heat spreading across Matt’s skin from the epicenter wherever his lips touched, then let go. “Please.”

Foggy pushed himself back, heels digging into the mattress and thighs flexing, and he rested his shoulders against the wall. Matt could smell the sharp spike in stress hormones, hear the uptick in his heartbeat, feel the added heat on his skin as he chafed his arms and looked away, at anything but Matt.

“Foggy,” Matt said softly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. This was so far out of keeping with any of the conversations they’d had, anything Foggy had said or done, that Matt felt like he’d fallen into a hole he somehow hadn’t sensed was there.

“I was dancing with a girl,” Foggy said. “She seemed nice, we hit it off, we were having a good time. She said her beer was hitting her hard, something about not having had more than a granola bar all day and pulling an all-nighter, I don’t know. She asked if I wanted the rest of it, I said sure, free beer. A little bit later, she’s not feeling so hot, says she wants to go home, she’s texting her friends, so I sat her down on a couch with a couple bottles of water and… I don’t really know, after that. I was feeling great, was the thing. But pretty fuzzy? Around the edges?”

Matt nodded carefully. Any number of club drugs, then. Maybe ecstasy, if Foggy hadn’t noticed anything off about the beer.

“I think I meant to go find a girl I was pretty sure was one of her friends, but then it was like an hour later or something, and I was playing pool with some of the enviro-law folks in the den? They kept asking if I was okay, saying I didn’t usually party so hard, so I’m guessing I was acting pretty out of it. Oh, and I found a plant with the _softest_ leaves. They were like velvet or something.” Foggy’s posture relaxed, and his blood pressure stopped climbing. “I mean, I had no idea plant leaves came in that texture? I kept thinking it’d be a great birthday present for you, because you could at least feel it even if you couldn’t look at it.”

“Come on, Foggy, focus,” Matt said gently. Foggy’s fingers kept digging into the blankets, rubbing circles in the microfiber, and Matt wanted to stop him at the same time he could feel Foggy slowly winding down from it.

“Mmm? Oh, right. The party.” Foggy frowned. “Um. Tommy dragged me into the kitchen after that, I think. He asked how much I’d had to drink and how I was feeling, and you know, half a beer and fucking awesome, respectively. The girl I was looking for was there, too, and she was, like, royally pissed. She wanted to call the cops, I guess, because the girl I split the beer with--oh, Sharon, her name’s Sharon--was feeling awful, but Tommy was trying to talk her into going to the medical center first. Something about that fight from a few months ago where the guy had that concussion and wound up needing fifteen stitches but the cops spent an hour harassing him for a statement and not letting the EMTs work?”

“So the nurse said you’d be fine?” Matt prompted. Foggy didn’t smell like he’d been to the medical center, had none of that bleach-latex-alcohol scent clinging to him.

Foggy shrugged. “I was trying to help, you know? Whatever they wanted to do, I was down with. But that just seemed to piss her off more, which I guess I can see because you’re not really at your most reasonable when you’re worried about your friends? So Tommy said maybe if I was feeling fine I should sleep some of it off while they figured out what to do.” Foggy hugged his arms to his chest. “I’ll swing by in the morning, I guess. It’s not like the nurses can do anything besides stick you in the chill-out room if you’re not sick so much as too high. I’m not feeling _bad_ , not like Sharon was, it’s just, like, I know I need to be on point and with it, and I… I don’t know, it’s like my brain’s not working right now.”

Matt choked back a growl and rubbed his chin. He didn’t have Tom’s number, did he? No, because he’d never needed to call Tom, never had any particular interest in talking to Tom. Tom was Foggy’s friend, for all that seemed to be worth.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Matt asked. “I think I should probably talk to Tommy and see if they’ve figured anything out yet.”

And then, once he’d gotten what information he could out of Tom, Matt needed to tell him exactly what sort of asshole abandoned someone who was too high to think straight in the middle of the night when it was this cold out.

“Uh.” Foggy patted his pockets, then kneaded his way through his coat, looking for the phone. Matt checked his jacket. “I think I left it there. Do you not have his number?”

Matt shook his head, and Foggy sighed.

“I’m sorry I’m being such a pain right now. I’m just tired, okay?” he said. “I’m sure they’re getting Sharon taken care of, and I’m not going to be much use to anyone until…” He spread his hands, frustrated. “I mean, sleeping it off’s not a bad move. At least you wouldn’t have to listen to me telling you how hot you are.”

“You’re not being a pain,” Matt said firmly. That much, at least, he didn’t have to qualify. “And this isn’t your fault.”

It would be easier, Matt thought, if Foggy hadn’t asked him not to touch, if he could pull Foggy to him, hug him, stroke his hair, tell him it would be okay. He poured a glass of water instead, then another when Foggy gulped down the first. Aside from the emotional distress and the elevated temperature, Matt couldn’t sense anything wrong. Foggy didn’t seem to be in danger, for which he was grateful, but at the same time it would have been more reassuring to hear a medical professional issue the same prognosis.

“I do think we should get you checked out, though,” Matt told him. “At least let them draw some blood.”

Getting the cops to give a shit about a drugging that hadn’t resulted in anything further was a long shot, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t at least try. And it wasn’t like Matt was powerless, if a strong suspect emerged without an arrest being made. He wouldn’t mind putting the skills he’d picked up from Stick to good use, right about now.

Foggy rubbed his eyes, and the scent of tears pricked at Matt’s nostrils. Maybe even if an arrest was made, he thought.

Matt climbed onto the bed, positioned himself next to Foggy, and looped his arms around him. Foggy crumpled against him, his shoulders shaking as he cried into Matt’s chest.

“It’s okay,” Matt soothed, patting him awkwardly. “It’s okay, just let me take care of everything, all right? I’ve got you.”

Foggy let himself be held, let Matt soothe him, didn’t push Matt away even after the tears eventually tapered off. Matt wished he’d thought to pocket his own phone, wished he had a way to make sure the medical center was even open at this hour before he went to the effort of disentangling himself from Foggy. Foggy’s temperature was still running high, but his heart rate had slowed and his stress responses had returned to their baseline; he was handling his state a lot better than he had been when he’d first crashed through the door. Matt didn’t want to wind him back up, but he also knew there was a very short window for collecting useful evidence with some of the likely drugs.

A sharp knock on the door made the decision for him. Matt grimaced and got to his feet, trying to ignore the way Foggy’s arms curled around his sides in Matt’s absence.

Matt opened the door, kept one arm braced across the threshold. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, hi, Mike, I know it’s late, but have you seen--” It all came out in a long rush, then broke off abruptly. Tom, Matt thought. Or maybe his roommate Jeff. Matt hadn’t paid enough attention over the months to keep them straight, any more than they’d paid enough attention to get Matt’s name right. They were never that far out of each other’s company, anyway. “Oh, thank _fuck_. Fogs, bro, are you okay?”

“Hey, Tommy,” Foggy said weakly. He waved from the bed, and Matt tried to keep his anger off his face.

“You want to fill me in on what’s going on?” Matt asked, his tone clipped.

“Give me a second, I should let everybody else know I found him,” Tom muttered, pulling out his phone. “Oh, and his--”

Tom produced a second phone, held it out to Matt, and then stopped short with a glance at Matt’s eyes and held it up so Foggy could see it instead.

“Left your phone behind, buddy. And gave us a hell of a scare,” Tom said. He tapped a quick message out and hit send, and Matt didn’t budge from the doorway.

“You said to go sleep it off?” Foggy asked.

“Oh, buddy.” Tom rubbed his forehead. “I meant have Jeff find you a free bed, not… walk home a half a mile in the snow while you were tripping balls. Jesus. I finally got Nance talked into heading for the ER and reporting there, and then nobody could find you and the door was open and your coat was gone. You know what kind of ads you get when you google how to form a search party?” Tom looked at Matt, his posture shifting, and Matt braced himself as much as he could without tipping his hand. Like hell was he letting Tom anywhere near Foggy. “You want to move over a few feet, bro?”

“You want to tell me why he’s high as a kite?” Matt asked, arching his eyebrows.

“Some asshole it turns out nobody really knew took a turn manning the keg and decided to give Sharon C. a party favor she didn’t ask for,” Tom spat. “Fortunately the two of them wound up sharing it, so she didn’t catch the whole thing, but instead of one person being out cold or needing her stomach pumped, we’ve got two people…” Tom gestured at Foggy, curled up and miserable on the bed. “Blitzed out of their gourds.”

“And then you just, what? Lost track of him?” Matt asked acidly. It wasn’t particularly comforting, that there had apparently been people out looking. Foggy had hardly sprinted home, in the state he was in.

“Matt,” Foggy said softly. That tone he used when Matt was coming on a little strong, except it was more of a plea now.

“For a few minutes, yeah,” Tom retorted. “And now he’s found. So we can get him to the ER. If you’d just get out of the way for five seconds.”

Tom’s voice left no illusions that the _we_ there included Matt, and Matt didn’t budge.

“I think I’ve got that part handled. Why don’t you head back to your place and give a statement to the police?” Matt suggested.

“Dude, no offense, but what are you going to do, drive him there yourself?” Tom demanded. The urge to punch him in the solar plexus surprised Matt, not in its presence but in its intensity. Like he’d suddenly been given an excuse to take every ounce of the worry and anger and shock of the past half hour out on someone he already didn’t like. “It’s not like you’re really equipped to handle this. Just let me--”

“ _Tommy_ ,” Foggy snarled. Matt paused at that, and Tom froze. Matt had never heard Foggy actually yell at someone before, had he? He’d heard Foggy yell about things, heard Foggy correct people over issues, make arguments, try to de-escalate fights. Foggy yelling at someone was a new one.

“Foggy, come on, you’re in no state to--”

“Tommy, I’d like you to leave. Now.”

Matt listened to Tom’s vitals wobble as he made up his mind about whether or not to force the issue. It wasn’t like Foggy was in any shape to make his decision stick, if Tom could get past Matt, which Tom probably assumed was a foregone conclusion. Tom finally shook his head and stepped back. He shoved Foggy’s phone into Matt’s hand. “You better take care of him, pal.”

It was tempting to fire back with some scathing retort, given how low a bar Matt would have to clear to at least manage it better than Tom had. Foggy was already back to nervous and uncertain, though, and Matt shut the door firmly without saying anything else.

“I’m sorry--” Foggy started.

“Don’t.” Matt shook his head sharply. “You didn’t do anything, and he’s not someone you have to apologize for.”

He took Foggy’s hands, coaxed him to the edge of the bed, and helped him into his jacket.

“Come on,” Matt said. “He isn’t wrong about you needing to get checked out by a doctor.” Matt picked up the coat and slipped Foggy’s phone into the pocket, then pulled it on over Foggy’s jacket. “I’ll call us a ride, okay?”

Foggy nodded and wiped at his eyes. “I’m still sorry,” he said quietly. “He shouldn’t have talked to you like that.”

“Hardly the worst thing anyone’s said to me,” Matt told him. It was true, and he appreciated the sentiment Foggy was trying to convey, but what he somehow kept circling back to was how visceral, how instantaneous, it had been when Foggy had jumped in with Tom. Even when Foggy could barely string a timeline for the past hour together coherently, he wasn’t going to tolerate his friends dismissing Matt. Matt couldn’t remember the last time someone had stuck up for him like that, without having to think about it, qualify it, compromise on it.

It was the most natural thing in the world to take Foggy’s hand and guide him through the dorm. Foggy didn’t protest, didn’t object to leaning on Matt the whole ride to the hospital. Foggy even slipped his hand back into Matt’s in the ER, while the time ticked by and they waited for the next free doctor, the whole milieu setting Matt’s teeth on edge around that warmth and reassurance.

It was almost morning by the time Foggy got an all-clear and Matt could take him home. Foggy’s quick update to the rest of the people involved had netted the response that Sharon had also been discharged, was physically none the worse for wear, had a case number and a detective’s phone number for him. 

When Matt got him back to the room, they fell into Foggy’s bed, Matt curling around him like he could undo the past six hours if he just hugged Foggy hard enough and Foggy finally settling down enough to sleep. Matt pressed his face into Foggy’s hair and tried not to think about how the night might have gone. Then Foggy shifted against him, and Matt found himself trying not to think about what Foggy had said, how Foggy’s hands had felt on him, how Foggy had defended him.

Foggy cared about him. Foggy liked him. Foggy valued Matt’s opinion of him. Foggy thought he was attractive. The transfer form sitting on his desk felt like a venial sin, Matt’s latest attempt to push away anything that looked like it might turn into a source of comfort. The problem with Foggy wasn’t that Matt worried about him so much as Matt’s refusal to address that worry, or maybe his conviction that he shouldn’t be worried in the first place. Matt let his arms tighten around Foggy. Foggy was his friend. He was allowed to worry about his friend.

He’d throw the form away. When Foggy was feeling steadier, they’d sit down and talk about it. Matt would make an attempt to be less of a jackass about things. It would be fine.

* * *

It wasn’t until Tuesday that Matt got the chance. Between dealing with the police, dealing with the Title IX office, dealing with his medical insurance, and simply dealing, Foggy only came home to shower, sleep, and change clothes in the immediate aftermath. Even the copy of the discharge paperwork Matt had needed in order to get an extension on the exam he’d missed the morning after had been left on Matt’s desk during the last legal aid session of the semester, its location communicated by text since Foggy was off to give a statement to yet another administrator.

The few hours Foggy was around and conscious, he was unhappy and taciturn and was clearly forcing himself to put a good face on it when Matt asked questions.

“Sharon’s pretty rattled, but I think it’s helping that everyone’s taking it super-seriously and being as supportive as they can,” Foggy had told him, when he got back from meeting with the Title IX coordinator. “They gave me a huge packet of stuff in case I need someone to talk to, which I’m not sure how I feel about, since it wasn’t like I got drugged on purpose. I mean, it sucked ass, don’t get me wrong, but I was just collateral damage.”

“It wasn’t great, and it could have been a lot worse,” had been Matt’s careful answer. He’d been trying not to dwell on how much worse, himself. “You’re allowed to feel however you feel about it.”

The next time had been a secondhand apology from Tom for his behavior.

“He said he was just spooked about me disappearing like that, when they knew I was hammered,” Foggy said, shaking his head. “He took it out on you, and he’s sorry.”

Matt hadn’t been in a big hurry to buy that one. “You can tell him I forgive him, if you really think he cares.”

“I don’t, which is…” Foggy sighed noisily. “It’s not _that_ far out of character, for him. You know, in retrospect. I’m still sorry, though.”

“And you still have nothing to apologize for. You didn’t raise him, Foggy, and you’re not his keeper--it’s not your fault he’s a jerkoff.” 

There had been something else there, something more lurking under what Foggy was saying. Matt could hear it in his pulse, feel it in the way his cheeks heated.

“Still, he was my friend, and he was an asshole to you, so. I’m sorry. About everything.”

Monday night, Foggy had brought home Chinese takeout for the two of them and then almost fallen asleep at the table. Matt had told him it was okay if he just wanted to turn in, that Matt didn’t need the lights on to keep eating.

“No, I… wanted to ask how your make-up exam went. Your professor wasn’t a dick about it, was she? I wrote her a huge email and attached a copy of the police report just in case she got salty about the discharge paperwork being--”

“Foggy, it was fine. She was cool about it,” Matt had assured him. Though now he wondered if that had been because of the email; the professor didn’t have the reputation for being cool about things. “And it went how it went. Not my strongest subject, but it’s done. I’m sure I passed the class.”

He’d been very, very glad of the meticulous work he’d done all semester long, given what a slog the exam had been. But then again, he’d known that going into the class--its reputation had preceded it.

Tuesday afternoon, though, Foggy had been home and at loose ends and clearly had something he wanted to talk about, so Matt figured it was as good a time as any.

“I, uh.” Foggy rubbed his hands together and got to his feet, pacing from his bed to the door and back. “I went ahead and dropped your room transfer form off this morning. They said they could probably have it done by the end of the week, with the break coming up. I just wanted to let you know that I really liked rooming with you, and I’m sorry about, well, everything. And if you need me to talk to Professor McHardass about that exam, or you know, anything else--I’ll do it.”

Matt sat down on the edge of his desk. He’d taken a bo staff right to the belly once, when he hadn’t expected to find himself in a fight, hadn’t been paying attention. Stick’s way of keeping them all on their toes, making sure they never felt like they were so safe they could let their guard down. It had never occurred to Matt that he could feel the same way without anyone laying a hand on him.

“I wasn’t going to--” Matt managed, trying to breathe around the knot in his stomach. “I wasn’t going to turn that in.”

He’d left it sitting on his desk, hardly out in the open but probably not well-hidden, either, and then Foggy had come by, had left Matt the discharge paperwork to keep him from taking a zero on a missed final, a final he’d missed because Foggy had needed medical attention, and. 

Matt swallowed.

“It’s okay, Matt.” Which was true, at the same time that Matt could hear and smell and taste the absolute fucking havoc that was playing out in Foggy’s bloodstream, his diaphragm, his heart. Foggy was trying not to cry, and Foggy was also completely and utterly sure that it wasn’t anything to do with how Matt had been handling this. “I know I’ve been… kind of a shitty roommate. I know you’ve had to remind me of stuff a million times, and I know access services on campus kind of sucks and you don’t need me adding to the distractions you already have to deal with, and I know you’re gonna be the next Thurgood Marshall and the last thing you want is me, uh, basically sabotaging you right out of the gate. Believe me, you really don’t have to justify or explain why you’d prefer a new roommate.”

“I don’t want a new roommate,” Matt told him. Foggy flinched, and Matt tried to compose himself. It was probably his face. It was always his face, giving him away, showing too much of the wrong thing, never doing what he needed it to. His glasses only covered so much.

“Why you’d prefer no roommate, then,” Foggy said, wiping at his eyes with his sleeve. “I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there, it’s not--”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Matt interrupted.

“You wanted it enough to fill out a whole damn form about it, Matty,” Foggy reminded him quietly. “Like I said, I get it. You’re here on a scholarship, you can’t go around not taking exams, you need to study. I’m sorry I wasn’t more considerate. I should’ve been.”

Matt focused on his breathing, wracked his brain for something that he could say that Foggy would _hear_. It wasn’t like Foggy was necessarily wrong, in some of his assumptions. Matt had spent half an hour wrestling with the form’s shitty design and substandard interface with his speech software, trying to fill it out correctly. He hadn’t precisely not meant it, at the time.

“I filled out the form almost a month ago, Foggy.”

“Oh.” Foggy stopped by the door, ran his fingers through his hair, and bit his lip. “Um.”

“You started coming home late, and I… I was worrying about you. A lot.” Foggy finally stopped fidgeting, was looking at him, watching him. The truth, Matt thought. Apparently what would get through to Foggy was the truth. Who could’ve guessed? “And instead of talking to you about it, I just wanted to stop worrying. So I thought, if you weren’t my roommate anymore, maybe that would be enough.”

“Huh.” Foggy looked down, rubbing his cheeks with the backs of his hands. “I didn’t mean to stress you out, there, buddy.”

“I haven’t had a lot of friends, Foggy,” Matt confessed. There had been a few other students he’d thought might turn into friends, when he’d been with Stick. It had turned out that Stick’s tutelage produced about the same results as the orphanage’s instability and institutional facade. People looked out for themselves, or they were loyal to the person barking orders and no one else. “This is probably the longest I’ve managed, so far. Since, um.” 

Since he’d realized that Stick was never going to see him as anything more than a means to an end, a tool. Matt felt an odd coolness on his cheeks. Tears. He was crying? He was crying, and he hadn’t noticed… 

Then Foggy’s arms were around him, and he was being gathered into a gentle hug. He could hear Stick’s voice, in his head, calling him weak. Telling him what loss of control like that resulted in. _Fuck you, old man._ He wrapped his arms around Foggy’s waist and squeezed, burying his face in Foggy’s sweater. 

How long had it been, since someone had just held him like this? Without having any particular expectations of him? Was that why he’d missed it, with Foggy--because however attractive Foggy might find him, that wasn’t why he was being kind, wasn’t why he invited Matt along on outings, wasn’t why he cared? 

After what felt like hours, Matt let go, flexed his arms, and tried not to be disappointed when Foggy dropped his hold and stepped back. 

Matt wiped his eyes quickly and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that I’m not good at this. I’m trying to be better, but right now I suck at it. A lot. I don’t want to you to go. I don’t want a new roommate, or no roommate. I meant to throw the form away. I never meant for you to just… trip over it like that. And, um. You coming home sick and needing me pretty much put paid to the idea that worrying about you was something I wouldn’t do if you lived somewhere else. I’d probably just worry more.”

“That last bit’s not exactly a big improvement,” Foggy pointed out, his brows furrowing and his voice going sad.

“I know. We’ll figure something out, okay?” Matt said, shaking his head. “For now, can we just go get housing to shred that form before we both wind up couch-surfing next semester?”

Foggy snorted and scrubbed at his eyes. “Yeah. We… shit, man, I thought I was helping.”

“It happens,” Matt said, sliding his hand into the crook of Foggy’s elbow. He leaned into Foggy’s side, enjoying the feel of Foggy’s body giving against his. “Hopefully they won’t yell at us too much.”

“Don’t worry.” Foggy squeezed his elbow against his ribs, pressing Matt’s hand against him. “I look like an incurable dumbass. Most bureaucrats just fix things instead of wasting their breath trying to explain how I broke them.”

“That’s not--” Matt laughed and shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“It’s like my superpower,” Foggy insisted, but he was smiling again. Matt hadn’t felt him smile since that night. Matt wanted to kiss him, and that was new, wasn’t it? Or maybe that was something else he’d missed, over the past few months.

“Fine,” Matt said. “Have it your way. But I’m buying dinner tonight.”

“Taco Bell it is,” Foggy teased. He was grinning now, and Matt definitely wanted to kiss him. It felt dumb, but also somehow right. Fitting.

“No,” Matt said firmly.

“McDonald’s.”

“Also no.” Matt wrinkled his nose.

“That pho place down the street from that gym you got thrown out of for giving people funny looks.”

“I did not get thrown out,” Matt told him, rolling his eyes. “I left _voluntarily_ , after they apologized profusely. And yes, pho. We’ll have them shred that form, and then we’ll--what time is it now?”

“Like four o’clock. Prime early-bird time.”

Matt nodded and tried not to smile. “And then we’ll eat dinner with every Vietnamese octogenarian in the city.”

“Watch out, Manhattan, we’re going to paint the town red tonight,” Foggy laughed ruefully. The fingers of his free hand curled over Matt’s, and Matt’s heart skipped a beat. “Sounds like a plan, buddy.”

“Yes,” Matt said. He stopped fighting the smile, and the quaver in Foggy’s heartbeat was its own reward. “Yes, it does.”


End file.
